Syndication

Earlier this week I was part of a teleconference sponsored by the Purposeful Planning Institute about the problems with using the billable hour as a way to charge for your services. The recording is now available so you can listen in. A bit about the program from the PPI announcement:

Title: The Billable Hour: Damaging to Your Brain, Detrimental to Life Satisfaction, and Destructive to Client Trust?

Host: Hartley Goldstone, Principal of Trustscape LLC, Research Fellow at Wise Counsel Research Associates, and PPI Dean of the Trustscape

Description: Hartley Goldstone, Dean of the Trustscape, interviews world-renowned value pricing expert Ron Baker and Dean of Neuroscience and Reflective Practices Stephanie West Allen about the effects the billable hour has on our minds and brains, professional and personal lives, and client satisfaction. Baker also talks about an effective alternative to the billable hour which he has perfected over many years working with lawyers, accountants, and other knowledge professionals.

Reading Recommendations & Resources:

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge M.D.

You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life by Jeffrey M. Schwartz, Rebecca Gladding MD

Purposeful Quote: “At every crossway on the road that leads to the future each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past.” - Maurice Maeterlinck (1862—1949), Belgian Nobel Laureate in literature, 1911

Having fun is a good reason to be playful. The pleasure it generates could be seen as its primary benefit. Even so, I want to explore what can be the longer-term benefits of playfulness. For the biologist, benefits are measured in terms of the particular ways in which an activity increases the chances of survival and enhances reproductive success. Most people would not worry too much if their playfulness affected their chances of survival and would probably not be at all concerned about its impact on their reproductive success. Many would, however, be interested in the particular long-term outcomes of their playfulness that eventually lead to those matters that concern biologists. I shall argue that one such outcome is their creativity.

Is stress bad for you? Not all of it. In fact, a life without stress would be neither healthy nor enjoyable. You do NOT want to wake up to days that are stress-free. Your clients don't want that for you either. With the right stress, you are a better lawyer or mediator. From an article in the Stanford alumni magazine:

In her lectures and classes, [Dr. Kelly] McGonigal used to teach people how to reduce or cope with stress, as if it were something to be avoided and dreaded. But in light of this research, she's changed her tune. She no longer focuses on training people to relax, breathe and calm down in the face of stress. Instead, she encourages them to harness the stress: "Rather than trying to slow your pounding heart, why couldn't you view it as your body giving you energy?" she says.

After all, even if you could live in a stress-free bubble, you'd probably have to excise all the things that imbue your existence with happiness and meaning—like relationships, challenging work, learning and growth. "In a way," McGonigal concludes, "stress is a kind of engagement with life."

Although this article uses the neuromythology of right brain/left brain, and is focusing on the medical profession, it nevertheless includes some observations that could prove useful for lawyers and other conflict practitioners. From an article in Philadelphia's The Inquirer "Restoring left-brain activities to medical school" (a title that is puzzling as it does not fit the article even if one uses the neuromyth of the brain being divided in function):

Medical education is in a crisis. According to a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine, half of 4,287 students surveyed at seven medical schools experienced burnout and 10 percent expressed suicidal ideation. And doctors aren't much better off; a second study in JAMA Internal Medicine of 7,288 physicians showed that almost half had experienced some symptom of burnout.

The public image of doctors hasn't fared well, either. While the popular notion of doctors was once the wise and avuncular Marcus Welby, M.D., more recent portrayals tend toward Dr. Gregory House, a brilliant but annoying know-it-all with a decided God complex.

Salvatore Mangione, an associate professor at Thomas Jefferson University, thinks he knows why. In talks and papers, he has investigated how medical education veered off course and how it can be reinvigorated. ......

"We've heard [anecdotally from students] that the [drawing] class was almost like Zen therapy," says Mangione. "The students felt that this helped them see things differently and to feel differently."

You probably don’t need statistics to appreciate the pervasive role of stress in American life, but the numbers are there if you do. A recent Stress in America survey found that a quarter of adults experience high stress on a regular basis, and 42% say their stress levels are rising.

Given the impact stress has been known to have on physical and psychological well-being, that makes it a pretty urgent problem for behavioral researchers to consider.

“As everyone knows, stress is prevalent in everyday life,” said APS President Elizabeth A. Phelps of New York University, by way of introducing her presidential symposium at the 2014 APS Annual Convention. “And it seems to be increasing.”

Phelps gathered a wide-ranging panel to address the roots of stress — as well as potential interventions for it — from neurobiological, cognitive, health, and developmental perspectives.

Most of the presentations I attended last week at the 26th Annual APS (Association for Psychological Science) Convention were extremely valuable and I learned much about, e.g., the latest science. However one of the programs stood out as not only a good learning experience but also immediately useful—and entertaining. I might even call it memorably inspiring and simply amazing. I am happy to see that the whole presentation is available for your viewing on the APS site.

Memory researcher Henry L. Roediger, III, spoke the digits at a rate of one every 2 seconds. A few feet to his left on the stage, memory athlete Nelson Dellis sat in a chair absorbing each one. Dellis was hunched over, his hands pressed over his eyes, his face a bit red with intensity. After Roediger announced the 100th digit, Dellis leaned back and asked for a moment to let it sink in. He was going to recite them back to the audience, all hundred, in order.

A packed ballroom never sat so silent in anticipation.

Roediger and Dellis had just spent the past hour revealing the secrets of mnemonic memory as part of the Bring the Family Address at the 26th APS Annual Convention. Roediger, APS Past President and a psychological scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, has pivoted some research attention to the spectacular feats of extreme memorizers. Dellis, the reigning and three-time US Memory Champion, helped him demonstrate to the crowd just how spectacular those feats are.

“Psychologists, strangely enough, even though there’s a large number of us who study memory, have not been as fascinating with mnemonic techniques as we might have been,” said Roediger. “They were sometimes seen as they are in education, as party tricks — not worthy of study. I think that’s misguided.”

I highly recommend you take the time to watch this program. Let me know what you think.

If you believe as I do that a mindful mediator is a more effective mediator—both because of his or her adept ability to utilize conflict resolution skills but more importantly because of the direct effect he or she has on the parties' affect (i.e., mood)—then I have a suggested program for you below.

No surprise to any of you who read my blogs: I think the reflectiveness, the mindfulness, of the mediator is significant, sometimes paramount, in the resolving of disputes. That mindfulness state is what in my opinion moves a dispute professional from adequate to excellent, to one who serves clients in a manner that is outstanding.

Because I think both play and self-knowledge can enhance our mindfulness, I am recommending a workshop to you. It's being taught September 18-21, by Doctors Bonnie Badenoch and Theresa Kestly in the artist and farmland community of Corrales, New Mexico, near the Rio Grande River. Click for all the details and to register. I have taken two seminars from Bonnie in the past, read two of her books which I recommend frequently, and believe she is gifted at working with clients. Even though I have not yet taken a class from Theresa, I know much about her approach and philosophy because I have read and appreciated several chapters of her forthcoming book The Interpersonal Neurobiology of Play. Both she and Bonnie are well-grounded in the science that underlies what they practice and teach.

So if you want to enhance your ability to resolve disputes while having fun in a beautiful setting learning from two mindful experts, sign up here.

Note: To learn more benefits of play, go to some of my past posts: here, here, and here.

Click to watch a video of Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas giving a short overview (around 20 minutes) of the biology of mindfulness and compassion. I recommend it; she's entertaining, in addition to being knowledgeable.